Don't get me wrong, I hate taking meds, I'm on Pregablin and Duloxetine for nerve pain with Co-Codamol 500/8 two four times a day, sometimes an extra 15 mgs Codeine Phosphate if the pain is really bad. I've tried Oramorph and Fentynal patches but they did nothing. I practice Mindfulnes, relaxation, Alexander Technique, and various self help stuff including exercise. But although my Co-Codamol is low strength I get relief from it, and fear I would be pretty dysfunctional without it. Psychologically I feel dependent and worry that along with many other chronic pain sufferers my GP who is wonderfully supportive may come under pressure to stop prescribing!
Hope I'm not being alarmist, but thought I'd flag up what's in the news.
Warmest wishes Everyone xxx
Written by
ginger31
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This is a very long winded way of saying pain meds are too expensive. Their use has absolutely nothing to do with addiction but I am sure ohers will disagree.
It has been medically proven that increased pain meds have no further effect on the recipient.
I can't do links but one very good listen is the Australian professor and top physio...Lorrimer Mosely. Google him.
For us David has been on ever stronger meds reaching Oxycontin + a package of many others. They don't work anymore as predicted. The best thing he can do is come off them all....slowly and one drug as a time...the pain will be no worse and that will be the end of poisoning himself.
One medicine we do have here, which I can't mention by name but is a lovely plant, has proved its worth million times with ho side effects. Unfortunately the big drug companies will not research it as there is no money in it for them.
So bottom line is money. And it is going to get a whole lot worse as the NHS disintegrates
Yes- a lazy scaremongering piece of gutter journalism , designed to inflame and misinform a gullible public and illinformed and uncaring political class.
First off , is the usual practice of mixing up dependency and addiction. This is blatantly scaremongery of lowest order.
I'm dependent- utterly- on a chemical mixture which I obtain constantly off the "street" -- one is H2O and the other is Oxygen. I would die without these- I'm totally dependent.
I'm not addicted to either constituent- I don't need any more than is sufficient for my well being.
The example of an addicted journalist is self explanatory- she knew what she was doing and suffered accordingly.
The role of Doctors complicit in overprescribing is a function of a health service that is disfunctional. Overworked doctors don't have the time to give their patients a full caring service.
That is why it is so important to be self educated in matters of our own health and to be active in such sites as this.
I won't go on any more- I allow myself to get so annoyed by rubbish articles like this.
I have had my dose of morphine doubled after I was refused to continue with coproxamol.
I was 20 years on coproxamol, (Distalgesic), never having an overdose, accidental or otherwise, yet I was taken off because it is "dangerous" It was the only thing that touched the breakthrough pain at night and during bad days. I had a prescription of 100 tabs per month, so not excessive. My GP was very apologetic but said his insurance would not cover him if he continued to prescribe.
The Pain Clinic doctor I have been referred to since then, has said I am "a victim of the nanny state" and confirmed that for some people they were the most effective painkiller.
Now I am stuck on morphine MST and Oramorph, where is the sense in that? Aren't they "dangerous" too?
Pain is not just something my son and I have, but I am also an academic researcher and pain is one of the areas I deal with.
This isn't scaremongering, or money saving. These drugs were supposed to be for end of life cancer pain, not for chronic pain. Taking these drugs for chronic pain was never meant to happen, but it was the easy thing to do, then patients demand it, and so the spiral goes. In the mean time research into chronic pain was not as robust as it could have been. After all, why bother to research when we can just feed patients these pills and they will go away and leave us alone.
Now finally the neuroscientists are being listened to, not to mention the neurologists going back years that knew about the differences between chronic and acute pain, and the psychological underpinning of of all pain.
There is nothing new in this article, what is new is that it is finally filtering down to primary care and into the general public that something they had been told for years was good for them, wasn't.
I actually find it really upsetting to read some of the peer reviewed papers from many years ago and realise how badly people have been treated by giving them these painkillers as they have been misled into thinking about pain in a way that isn't correct.
Gabapentin was developed as a drug for Epilepsy - nothing to do with cancer.. It blocked messages going to the brain.
It was then used in chronic pain in lowr doses to, hopefully, have similar effects.
It has been medically proved, through research, there is no such medicine as a pain killer. Pain management yes and pain reduction too. But the research also shows that after a certain length of time no meds will work
It has always been known as pain management but sadly too many people want a quick fix. There isn't one and ever has been.
Yes, WELL HERE WE GO AGAIN, blaming people who manage their pain for being addicted blah blah blah, well I'm sick of it, well come on there is a very good reason why people take opioids because they work and do the job. I know because I've used them for many years and like all drugs you have to manage them, to not over use them or use them for anything other than managing the pain and to help you relax which in turn helps in the management of your condition.
That Grundig article is the hand-wringing of stupid people who do not really know what they are talking about, 60 lozenges a day indeed, she was obviously using them like an alcoholic uses alcohol (that is addiction of the mind) that needs to get itself under control.
We give so many people anti-psychotics, and many other drugs that in one way or another are addictive but do a certain job for a certain amount of people but have a devastating affect on the patient, but because it controls a certain behaviour that society want's hidden then it is okay to over use antidepressants anti-psychotic's, alcohol , food , etc etc.
All drugs have a place and a use for whatever reason, it is always about managing them. When there is a tendency to use them for anything other than managing them for certain conditions like "Chronic Pain" (or even psychological pain that you accumulate of having to manage over many years) then that is something else, but finding the line where people need it for one reason, but end up using it for another reason is very difficult because of the psychological implications around managing something like pain 24 hours a day, so I would say that there is no real defining line where you can accuse the patient of just being addicted, well so what, addiction like any other condition can be managed and society will in the end will have to live with addiction in it's midst just like alcohol is now part of society and society tolerates alcoholics because it must, why do we tolerate one but not the other, because drug's is not going to go away anytime soon, in fact the consumption of alcohol is going down and I would argue that society will benefit from this, ask any policeman of what causes more harm to society and what makes their job more dangerous and I know what they will say.
I am not advocating for drug use or saying it is good for society all I'm saying is that we must learn to live with the fact that they are here and are not going away best Alex
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